Monday, July 4, 2016

15 Minutes to Live by Phoef Sutton (Spoiler Alert)a

Synopsis via Amazon:

Carl moved into his childhood home after his parents died. It’s a house filled with fond memories…like when he was a teenager and his girlfriend Jesse would throw pebbles at his window at night to lure him outside for frantic sex. So he thinks he’s dreaming when late one night, he hears those pebbles hitting his window again…and there she is outside, aching for his touch. It’s only as they are ravaging each other again that he realizes it’s too good to be a dream. It’s her. She’s back as if nothing has changed. But it has. For one thing, it’s been twenty years since high school. And she died three weeks ago. Is she an imposter? A ghost? Or is the answer even more chilling? It’s just the beginning of a dangerous, unpredictable, and bizarre odyssey for them both…where nothing is what it seems… and every minute counts.
This was not one of my favorite reads. I have to say that is was a unique read. I have never read anything quite like it. My intellectual side wants to know if you take it at face value or is there a deeper meaning?
Let's look at it from the face value side. Here is a man, Carl, who is well into his prime and he still has not, in essence, moved on with his life. He has not married, he bought his childhood home, and he wallows in the past. Okay, so this isn't very far from the everyday norm for some people. But then, all of a sudden, one night his high school sweetheart shows up, throwing pebbles at his window, acting just like she did during their high school years and they pick up where they left off. They have sex just like they did during high school, but she seems to "reset" every 15 minutes. She can't remember anything past the last 15 minutes. Oh, did I mention she was declared dead?
OK, so there are so many things wrong with this. First, she is supposed to be dead, second, she is acting just like she did in high school, third, she is supposed to have married someone else, and fourth, she can't remember more than 15 minutes of her current life.
Carl just jumps right into having sex with this woman who is clearly confused. He doesn't stop and think there is something seriously wrong with her when she can only seem to remember the past and 15 minutes at a time. This totally reeks of rape to me.
Now the deeper meaning possibility. Is the author saying that everyone lives at most 15 minutes of their life over and over? Is he intent on showing that most people are, at their core, selfish and will take what gives them pleasure without any thought?
All I know is that this was a difficult and strange read, but like a train wreck, I just couldn't quit reading in the hopes that it would get better. Well, it never did get better.